I'm disappointed that Rowling thinks she has to start milking her cash cow again. Harry Potter was brilliant, but it had a beginning and a middle and an end. The rest of this stuff is just threatening to add unnecessary fluff. I really wanted her to move on and try new things. And yes, I'm aware that the book this film is based on predates most of the Harry Potter books.

I'm disappointed that Rowling thinks she has to start milking her cash cow again. Harry Potter was brilliant, but it had a beginning and a middle and an end. The rest of this stuff is just threatening to add unnecessary fluff. I really wanted her to move on and try new things. And yes, I'm aware that the book this film is based on predates most of the Harry Potter books.

Haha, understandable. I'm willing to give it a shot and see how it plays out. It certainly looks different enough, but there's definitely something to be said for the fact that the Potter universe now has a 9th movie coming out, over the course of, what... 15 years? ...Yet the Star Wars universe only has its 8th film coming out (and 9th, next year), in a 39 year span. I refuse to count the Ewok movies.

Valerian looks pretty cool. I saw about eight minutes of it at SDCC... was pretty rough - technically - no VFX had really been done, but I've still been a fan of MOST Luc Besson works in his latter years... even if nothing comes close to The Professional. The jury is still out, but I'm THRILLED to see a lesser-known SCI-FI property get a $170 million budget. Hopefully it does well enough to get more unique material funded.

As someone who missed The Fifth Element (one of my top ten movies) in theaters and has been kicking himself his whole life, I'm looking forward to this, I marked my calendar the day I heard the release date.

I wonder if Valerian is better-known in Europe to the point that it helped justify the budget… one of those things with more of a built-in audience there than here? So many movies today are made largely with the hopes that they will do well in China, might as well let Europe have their say too :p

I'm one of the people that watched Interstellar in 70mm, having sought out the only theater in Denver that still showed the format. To be honest, I wasn't impressed. I mean yeah, it was big and bright and detailed, but at the same time, it had scratches and hairs and squigglies and perceptible brightness variances and all of the things associated with projecting film. In short, it was a disappointment and not worth the effort.

Having said that, FILMING in film still holds a tiny insignificant advantage with dynamic range and contrast, but the ends don't justify the means. Film is a dinosaur, and the practicality of using it for a large event-type picture does not hold any advantage over digital techniques which are logistically superior and more cost-effective. Not only that, but film still needs to be digitized for grading and effects and so forth, so what are you really gaining? An image that maybe be sharper and more detailed to the eyes of .001% of the people who are watching it?

Not worth it. This is pure nostalgia.

Last edited by Nic on Mon Nov 14, 2016 12:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

Film is an interesting thing, these days. On the one hand, it was the PERFECT medium for the start of the 20th century - great for archival purposes and brilliant for restoration. 65mm is brilliant in that respect as well, and I'd argue still better for quality's sake than anything less than the new 8k sensors that just started shipping. We've got a $100k+ HDR monitor here at the office, and watching legit HDR footage on it is obscene. It looks INCREDIBLE, regardless of whether the source with film or digital. The thing about film, at least pre-2000, is that we can still pull glorious HDR versions out of it with new scans/restorations. Video, at least until 2014-ish, we'd still be dealing with some dynamic range loss - which would hurt the archival aspect of it, for future "scans" down the road.

Now if we're talking about film as a quality-for-right-NOW medium, film is "dead" in the sense that digital has finally caught up with the Arri65 and Red Helium sensor, but I agree with most of what you're saying. Frankly, all big budget films should be shooting for one of three options: 65mm film, Arri 65, or RED Helium super35mm 8k. Those are the kings of today, and all three will look equally as good 20 years from now, when we break out the archives.

Chad Peter wrote:Now if we're talking about film as a quality-for-right-NOW medium, film is "dead" in the sense that digital has finally caught up

When they announced The Force Awakens would be shot on film I took it as the filmmakers trying to say they were going another way from the prequels. I also thought it a bit odd when SPECTRE went back to film straight after Skyfall.

when you look at how much colour grading happens now it really is six of one and half a dozen of the other.

One, directors who think they have to shoot on film. Enough already. Film is cumbersome and expensive and all the stopping and starting during production and potential headache involved with transportation and developing and mastering and yadda yadda is not worth the imperceptible difference. Film is dead.

Two, fucking 3D. Enough with this shit. It was funny at first for a little bit, but enough is enough.

Nic wrote:Two, fucking 3D. Enough with this shit. It was funny at first for a little bit, but enough is enough.

Haha, funny you should mention this. I agree. Saturday night I was eating dinner with a buddy of mine, when my buddy saw a girl he knows - she and her boyfriend came and sat next to us. Typical Hollywood, we all work in the film industry, of course, and the girl's boyfriend worked specifically in 3D conversion. When my buddy said he didn't like to watch movies in 3D, the boyfriend basically went on a 30 minute rant about how stagnant everyone is, and how everyone should just accept it as superior. He also said that no one likes 3D yet, because DP's and Directors don't know how to use it.

This looks pretty mediocre. At least Keaton is back playing Birdman again, and Downey is there to inflate the budget astronomically. I also predict Peter Parker taking off his mask at EVERY opportunity so they can justify the new actor, something that a super hero should never do.

Blade Runner 2049. I was stoked as soon as I heard it was happening. Every move they've made since has been encouraging. Great director, great D.P., good casting news all around, and then this STUNNING teaser trailer today. I'm tuning out of everything Blade Runner-related until October. I don't want to see a damn thing that might detract from that new movie smell in the theater opening night. I haven't done a midnight show in a long time because A) it's just a movie and B) I'm getting too old for that shit. I will make an exception here.

Heiliger wrote:Blade Runner 2049. I was stoked as soon as I heard it was happening. Every move they've made since has been encouraging. Great director, great D.P., good casting news all around, and then this STUNNING teaser trailer today. I'm tuning out of everything Blade Runner-related until October. I don't want to see a damn thing that might detract from that new movie smell in the theater opening night. I haven't done a midnight show in a long time because A) it's just a movie and B) I'm getting too old for that shit. I will make an exception here.

I'd watch Denis V take a shit, so I'll certainly check out his interpretation of Blade Runner. That said, the trailer didn't WOW me (not sure why), but I really am looking forward to seeing where they go with this... and if they maintain Deckard is a replicant, like Ridley Scott says he is. Not sure how a replicant would AGE........